


interlude

by hotdogharvester



Series: "every breath you take" is not a love song [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/M, Kidnapping, Music, Non-Consensual Touching, One-Sided Attraction, Stockholm Syndrome, accidental comedy, better safe than sorry, tarn is a pretentious bastard, there is no rape in here but it is the backstory to the Bad Future Stuff so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 20:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdogharvester/pseuds/hotdogharvester
Summary: Tarn makes you listen to opera music with him and it fucking blows





	interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing much happens but it has been too fucking long since I've updated. There will be more...eventually.

Sprawled out on a mass murderer’s lap is not how you anticipated spending any part of your life. Even if you had, it wouldn’t have been like this. If someone had asked you to imagine being taken prisoner by Decepticons it probably would have involved public humiliation: being some kind of living trophy or treated like a dumb animal. Wearing a collar. Eating from a trough.

In your wildest nightmares you would not have predicted being forced to listen to Cybertronian opera music.

“This is the overture from an obscure comedy of manners that’s fairly accessible, but still has some hidden depths for the connoisseur. In my opinion, it’s an unrecognized gem. I think you might enjoy it.”

Tarn presses play, and not for the first time you wonder if you’re having a stroke. The bouncy, playful melody is one you’ve heard before, but never away from Earth, and never outside the basement of your one elementary school friend who had a Nintendo. The instrumentation is more layered and elegant but there’s no mistaking the theme from _Super Mario Bros. 2_.

“Ha. Very funny. Tarn, what is the point of this?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you playing video game music?”

He hesitates. His fingers stop raking through your hair.

“You must be mistaken. This is from a Cybertronian opera.”

“Oh no, it’s not. It’s the Mario music. Or it’s…it’s the main theme from _Super Mario Bros. 2_.”

“I do not know what that is and I doubt it has anything in common with _The Metallurgist’s Folly_.”

It is absolutely, positively, most sincerely, one hundred and ten percent the Mario music.

“Well, I don’t know the first thing about alien musicals but I know Nintendo music when I hear it, and that is the music from _Super Mario Bros. 2_. I would stake my life on it.”

“I maintain that you are mistaken. Maybe it sounds similar to some piece of Earth media but I highly doubt–”

“Stop. Pause the music. Go on whatever search engine you have, look for ‘Super Mario 2 overworld them,’ and play it. Don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I know that music and this is that.”

Tarn pauses the music. Your heart jumps into your throat when you realize that you effectively just gave him an _order_ , and he _followed it_. You crossed a boundary. He might be about to kill you. If you weren’t blindfolded you could judge his reaction but now you’re too scared to move. Just as you’re brainstorming an apology, you hear the sound of typing, and a click, and then…

Yup. That’s it: the goddamned _Super Mario Bros. 2_ music, down to the last trill and eighth rest.

The two of you listen in silence for almost a minute before Tarn interrupts.

“Well. That’s…quite…the coincidence. The similarity is…striking. Hm. It has a certain charm, but I have to say it doesn’t measure up to the _real_ music.”

It is exactly the same music.

You start to shake. You bite your lip and clench your fists. It makes no difference.

You collapse into peals of laughter in Tarn’s lap, one hand flying up to cover your face as if you could hide anything from him.

“This is so WEIRD!” you wheeze in between howls of mirth.

“It’s the _same!_ You can’t just…it’s the _same music!_ Somehow! I don’t…WOW!”

By the time your laughter is under control the music has long since come to a halt. Tarn is cradling your head like he was before.

“You’re smiling,” he says.

His tone tells you he’s wearing a similar expression. 

“It’s funny!”

“That’s the first time you’ve smiled since…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence: the first time you’ve smiled since he brought you here. You feel that small, fragile grin drop off your face. The moment of levity is gone. He ruined it. Of course he did. Even if he hadn’t said anything, you would have eventually remembered where you are and who you’re with. Who you are. _What_ you are.

His thumb is stroking your cheek. You get the impression he’s waiting for the right moment to kiss you, and you wonder if he cares that there is no right moment.

“Am I allowed to suggest anything or are you just going to play your own music at me forever?”

He might be surprised by your question. You can’t really tell without seeing his face.

“I didn’t think you would want to share,” he replies. “You’ve never suggested anything before today. Do you have something in mind?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

You don’t. But you miss music. Well…regular music. Knowing that someone was listening in on you for weeks makes you hesitate to recommend anything you really like. So, nothing peppy, nothing with vocals, nothing you could jam out to while putting laundry away.

“Well?”

“Barber’s _Adagio for Strings_.”

Simple. Slow. Impossible for anyone to get horny to. Perfect.

Tarn finds the adagio somewhere online, queues it up, and presses play. For a couple minutes all is silent save for the slow, funereal sweep of strings. Then, of course, he has to ruin everything again.

“No singing today, I take it?”

You haven’t sung anything since before you were taken. You know he wants you to sing for him. You’re not going to.

“No.”

He hums at that, tangling one finger in your hair.

“Why not?”

You sigh.

“I only sing for fun. When I feel safe.”

“You still feel unsafe here.”

It’s a statement, not a question or a challenge. There’s no trace of anger or incredulity in his voice. And yet, hearing him say that with no accompanying admission of guilt or apology has a headache blooming in your temples. The absurdity of recent events has made you just a little bold.

“Of course I don’t…why would I? Ok. Leaving aside the fact that I’m _not_ safe by any reasonable definition of that word, why do YOU think I feel so unsafe? I wanna hear what you think.”

There’s a pause.

“You really want to know what I think?”

“Yes. Why would I even ask if I didn’t?”

Right about now you’re wishing you hadn’t asked, but it’s too late to shrug this off with a “nevermind”. Tarn cradles your head in one hand, brushing the tips of his other fingers across your forehead. He’s probably staring right at you. Sometimes, the blindfold is a blessing.

“I think you doubt my ability to keep you safe. I think you’re still holding out hope of rescue. But, I know you’re smart, and _you_ know that if this ship is vulnerable enough for a rescue attempt, then it’s vulnerable enough for other things, and that anyone capable of breaking in here probably doesn’t care about the life of a single lost organic. I also think that you’re afraid of my team. I’ll admit that’s not unwise. I will remind you, however, that as long as I’m alive, they will follow my orders, and my orders include specific instructions regarding your protection.”

He’s not wrong. He’s a bastard, but he’s not wrong.

“What if you die?”

“Can you reasonably foresee any circumstances in which I would be dead and you would still be alive? Assuming of course that my team would also still be alive to pose a threat to you.”

You have nothing to say to that. He chuckles, but gently.

“I think you feel lost: that you have no appropriate guidelines for the direction your life has taken. You think you’re caught up in a moral crisis, but you’re not. You’re reevaluating everything you’ve done that’s led you here and you’re struggling not to cling to the only pillar of stability within view.”

Oh, he had better not be talking about himself.

“Of course, I’m referring to myself,” he whispers, stroking the side of your head.

You can’t help muttering, “Oh, for god’s sake.”

Instead of scolding you for even mentioning a higher power, Tarn continues to softly tangle his fingers in your hair.

“But, more than all of that, I think you’re afraid of me.”

This is new. Usually he just seems affronted that you haven’t proposed marriage to him.

Tarn continues, “I don’t think it’s necessarily because of who or even _what_ I am, to be honest. I don’t think you’re afraid of me because I’m a soldier or a Decepticon. I don’t think you’re afraid of me because I brought you here by force, though I understand why you might disagree on that front.”

He’s definitely wrong about that.

“I think you’re afraid because, despite all evidence to the contrary, you don’t think that I care about you; you feel unsafe because you don’t _really_ believe that I love you.”

“Oh fuck _off_ , of course I believe that, I–”

That takes the both of you by surprise. Tarn freezes. So do you.

“I…I mean…”

There’s heat on your face. He’s leaning down; his unmasked face is close enough that you can see the dim red blots of his optics through the blindfold. He’s way, way too close, closer now than was when he forced his tongue into your mouth and made you moan against him.

“Listen. Listen to me, Tarn. I believe that you _think_ you love me. I believe that something about me, for reasons I can’t fathom, inspires some tender emotion in you, and you’re so used to…to war, and horror, that you just reach for that whenever you feel it. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing but for me? It’s frightening. Being here is _frightening_. I fall asleep afraid and I wake up afraid. And I just don’t think you can build any kind of meaningful relationship with someone who’s being held against their will.”

Tears are seeping past the blindfold. The fabric is heavy on your eyelids. Tarn kisses you on the forehead, then on both cheeks, and leans back, his fingers gentle in your hair.

“You’ll see,” he whispers. “This is only temporary. You’ll see.”

“I wanna go home,” you whimper.

“You don’t have to _go home_ ,” he murmurs. “You’re stronger than you think. You can adapt. This ship can be home; _I_ can be a home to you. Just give it an honest chance.”

Tarn finds the sensitive spots on your scalp and he’s so wretchedly _gentle_ with you. He’s wrong about so much, and you know it, and you know you’ll never be able to convince him of the truth. Barber’s _Adagio_ winds down, and the room is filled with a silence that is intimate in the worst way. 

  



End file.
